Happy Monday!

My work week started out kind of weird. I get to work and go to get out of the car. Something made me look down at my feet. It's a good thing I did!

Pulled back out of my good parking space and went home to get a shoe that matched one I was actually wearing. Thankfully, I wasn't that late for work!

I did get a chance this weekend to sew a bit. I worked on the latest installment of the Ravelry Quilters Knitting block of the month. This was an easy one and quick!

Here are all the blocks together on my cutting table.

I also had some time to knit and stitch this weekend. I'm finding that now that I have a sewing room and a chair in there that I'm spending a bit of time in there most evenings. It's been nice and a good stress reliever. I'm spending a little less time on the computer but that's not a bad thing. Greg came in and sat for a while yesterday while I was sewing.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to make sure I have matching shoes on before I leave the house! Thankfully, that was the worst part of the day and everything else went smoothly.

Happy Stitches!

Not Much...

...going on here this week.

For the $5 quilt I'm just starting there is an accessory applique block each month. This month's has a pieced background and I did get it done this week. The points aren't as good as I'd like them to be but let's face it, applique is going to go over it so I'm not going to redo anything. I was thrilled, however, that it came out the right size! And I have room to trim it up later on. You all know how I've been struggling with that! The instructions on the applique placement are non-existent so I'm holding off until I get more direction at this months meeting.

Chris has been working on refinishing 2 end tables we gave him. He's using them as nightstands. They were the typical oak color but he wants them a dark coffee brown to match the big mirror we gave him at Christmas. This is the first time he's done anything like this and the first one came out nice.

Not much else has been going on. I'm stitching and/or knitting a bit each evening. My Per Terras shawl is back to being worked on again. It was a good week at work too!

Is This Going To Work?

Sunday afternoon I spent some time organizing my purchases from the 2 Tote Bag Sales I went to on Saturday. I've been thinking about how to organize pending projects. I decided to make kits with the pattern and fabrics together. First up, Lincoln - a Schnibbles pattern. It's my first of these patterns. It's all here. Binding, backing, and 2 charm packs. I labeled the containers too.

Next is the cover pattern from Simply Charming. I thought this would be a good quilt to give to one of my nieces, Ava. Her favorite color is Pink!

But then I got to thinking that there are other patterns in that book that I might want to make and I might not be able to find the book. So I copied the pattern and that's what I'm storing in the kit. The pattern book is going back on the shelf so I can find it easily.

My last project is another Go Green Shopper. I won this turnover at our last Moda Maniacs meeting. I already had the pattern as I've made one before. So all I needed was a bit of binding and fabric to line the tote. For this one, the lining and binding will be made out of the same fabric.

I can see how it would just be easier in the moment to throw things in the closet or stack the fabric up and move on. It would also take less time. On Sunday, by the time I put things away and straightened up a couple of other things an hour had quickly passed. I could have been doing something fun!

I'm trying to organize in a manner that counterbalances my misplacing things and forgetting what things are for. In my professional life, it's rare that I forget anything. I'm on time, organized and prepared for meetings. I get things done early. Sometimes I use lists, sometimes not. At home, I HAVE to have a list. I forget where I put things or what I need to buy. I misplace the cable remote regularly. I have visions of finding a pile of fabric that is obviously for a project and having absolutely no recollection what pattern it was intended for. So we'll see if this type of organizing works for me. I sure hope it does. I'm trying it with stitching projects too. Though with stitching I'm afraid that I'm going to end up with 20 skeins of one color floss. I'll need to work on curbing my instincts to just throw everything in the closet or a drawer! That's going to be a real challenge!

How do you organize your projects? What have you found works for you or does not work for you? I'd love to hear your experiences!

Tote Bag Sale

This weekend both of my Local Quilt Shops had Tote Bag Sales. Everything you could stuff into the bag was either 30% or 25% off depending on which store you were in. EVERYTHING! I loaded up. I probably should have purchased some sewing machine feet but never made it over to the rack.

The fabric in the middle is my favorite. I bought a little bit extra but I probably should have gone for a LOT extra! It's going to be a backing fabric and the polka dot will be a binding fabric.

The L'Amour fabrics will go into a quilt for one of my nieces. I also bought a lot of background fabrics in cream and white. You can never have too much of those, right?

As you can tell, I also stocked up on some thread and Best Press. My current favorite thing to use is Mary Ellen's Best Press. I've always used it on my pieced quilts to smooth them out but now I'm using it before cutting and along every step of the way. It helps keep my fabric from getting wonky, my cuts are crisper and it's easier to match up points. I really think it's an undervalued tool.

It's yet another gray day here. I hope where ever you are that you're finding a ray of sunshine here and there....even if it's not from the sun! :)

I'm halfway through the 3rd page of the chart on Quakers and Quilts.

I'm still enjoying every second of this project!

Saturday our Stitching Guild spent the afternoon together and then went out to dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant that I had not been to before. Delicious!

I spent some time in my sewing room yesterday but what I was working on wasn't interesting enough to post pictures. I worked on the backgrounds for 2 blocks. One background is cross hatched with a light batting behind it and the other is pieced. Applique will got on top of both of them. In January I had a quilting/LQS event every Saturday. In February that will slow down a bit and I'm looking forward to going back to my Saturday knitting.

We're supposed to have rain all this week. UGH! I hate getting wet on the way to work.

Happy Stitches!